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Human-CenteredSoftwareEngineering: BridgingHCI,
UsabilityandSoftwareEngineering From its beginning in the 1980's,
the ?eld of human-computer interaction (HCI) has
beende?nedasamultidisciplinaryarena. BythisImeanthattherehas
beenanexplicit recognition that distinct skills and perspectives
are required to make the whole effort of designing usable computer
systems work well. Thus people with backgrounds in Computer Science
(CS) and Software Engineering (SE) joined with people with ba-
grounds in various behavioral science disciplines (e. g., cognitive
and social psych- ogy,
anthropology)inaneffortwhereallperspectiveswereseenasessentialtocreating
usable systems. But while the ?eld of HCI brings individuals with
many background disciplines together to discuss a common goal - the
development of useful, usable, satisfying systems - the form of the
collaboration remains unclear. Are we striving to coordinate the
varied activities in system development, or are we seeking a richer
collaborative framework? In coordination, Usability and SE skills
can remain quite distinct and while the activities of each group
might be critical to the success of a project, we need only insure
that critical results are provided at appropriate points in the
development cycle. Communication by one group to the other during
an activity might be seen as only minimally necessary. In
collaboration, there is a sense that each group can learn something
about its own methods and processes through a close pa- nership
with the other. Communication during the process of gathering
information from target users of a system by usability
professionals would not be seen as so- thing that gets in the way
of the essential work of software engineering professionals.
Activity theory is a way of describing and characterizing the
structure of human - tivity of all kinds. First introduced by
Russian psychologists Rubinshtein, Leontiev, and Vigotsky in the
early part of the last century, activity theory has more recently
gained increasing attention among interaction designers and others
in the hum- computer interaction and usability communities (see,
for example, Gay and H- brooke, 2004). Interest was given a
signi?cant boost when Donald Norman suggested activity-theory and
activity-centered design as antidotes to some of the putative ills
of "human-centered design" (Norman, 2005). Norman, who has been
credited with coining the phrase "user-centered design," suggested
that too much attention focused on human users may be harmful, that
to design better tools designers need to focus not so much on users
as on the activities in which users are engaged and the tasks they
seek to perform within those activities. Although many researchers
and practitioners claim to have used or been in?uenced by activity
theory in their work (see, for example, Nardi, 1996), it is often
dif?cult to trace precisely where or how the results have actually
been shaped by activity theory. Inmanycases,
evendetailedcasestudiesreportresultsthatseemonlydistantlyrelated,
if at all, to the use of activity theory. Contributing to the lack
of precise and traceable impact is that activity theory, - spite
its name, is not truly a formal and proper theory.
Activity theory is a way of describing and characterizing the
structure of human - tivity of all kinds. First introduced by
Russian psychologists Rubinshtein, Leontiev, and Vigotsky in the
early part of the last century, activity theory has more recently
gained increasing attention among interaction designers and others
in the hum- computer interaction and usability communities (see,
for example, Gay and H- brooke, 2004). Interest was given a
signi?cant boost when Donald Norman suggested activity-theory and
activity-centered design as antidotes to some of the putative ills
of "human-centered design" (Norman, 2005). Norman, who has been
credited with coining the phrase "user-centered design," suggested
that too much attention focused on human users may be harmful, that
to design better tools designers need to focus not so much on users
as on the activities in which users are engaged and the tasks they
seek to perform within those activities. Although many researchers
and practitioners claim to have used or been in?uenced by activity
theory in their work (see, for example, Nardi, 1996), it is often
dif?cult to trace precisely where or how the results have actually
been shaped by activity theory. Inmanycases,
evendetailedcasestudiesreportresultsthatseemonlydistantlyrelated,
if at all, to the use of activity theory. Contributing to the lack
of precise and traceable impact is that activity theory, - spite
its name, is not truly a formal and proper theory.
Human-CenteredSoftwareEngineering:
BridgingHCI,UsabilityandSoftwareEngineering From its beginning in
the 1980's, the ?eld of human-computer interaction (HCI) has
beende?nedasamultidisciplinaryarena. BythisImeanthattherehas
beenanexplicit recognition that distinct skills and perspectives
are required to make the whole effort of designing usable computer
systems work well. Thus people with backgrounds in Computer Science
(CS) and Software Engineering (SE) joined with people with ba-
grounds in various behavioral science disciplines (e. g. ,
cognitive and social psych- ogy,
anthropology)inaneffortwhereallperspectiveswereseenasessentialtocreating
usable systems. But while the ?eld of HCI brings individuals with
many background disciplines together to discuss a common goal - the
development of useful, usable, satisfying systems - the form of the
collaboration remains unclear. Are we striving to coordinate the
varied activities in system development, or are we seeking a richer
collaborative framework? In coordination, Usability and SE skills
can remain quite distinct and while the activities of each group
might be critical to the success of a project, we need only insure
that critical results are provided at appropriate points in the
development cycle. Communication by one group to the other during
an activity might be seen as only minimally necessary. In
collaboration, there is a sense that each group can learn something
about its own methods and processes through a close pa- nership
with the other. Communication during the process of gathering
information from target users of a system by usability
professionals would not be seen as so- thing that gets in the way
of the essential work of software engineering professionals.
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